For decades, scholars have studied the powerful effects of media. More specifically, researchers have found that media can be considered agents of socialization—shaping and influencing people's identities and identity formations. Because media is often our only “gateway” to witness what occurs outside of our view, it becomes the lens in which we use to view our world—especially when it comes to the framing of crime in the inner city. In this essay, I use the events surrounding Cincinnati, Ohio, and its race riots of 2001 as the case for analysis. Specifically, I use an autoethnographic account to detail the impact that news coverage on crime in Cincinnati can have on minority individuals who do not reside in the inner city. Finally, this essay further establishes the role—intentional or unintentional—that reporters and journalists play in community and public relations issues.
Altheide, D.L., & Snow, R.P. (1979). Media logic. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
2.
Asen, R. (2003). Women, work, welfare: A rhetorical history of images of poor women in
3.
welfare policy debates. Rhetoric and Public Affairs, 6, 285-312.
4.
Black Athlete Sports Network. (2001). Available from http://www.blackathlete.net
5.
Bing, J.M., & Lombardo, L.X. (1997). Talking past each other about sexual harassment: An exploration of frames for understanding. Discourse and Society, 8, 293-311.
6.
Blau, J.R., & Blau, P.M. (1982). The cost of inequality: Metropolitan structure and violent crime. American Sociological Review, 47, 114-129.
7.
Braithwaite, D.O., & Baxter, L.A. (2006). "You're my parent but you're not": Dialectical tensions in stepchildren's perceptions about communicating with the nonresidential parent. Journal of Applied Communication Research, 34, 30-48.
8.
Brewer, P.R. (2002). Framing, value words, and citizens' explanations of their issue opinions. Political Communication, 19, 303-316.
9.
Conquergood, D. (1991). Rethinking ethnography: Towards a critical cultural politics. Communication Monographs, 58, 179-194.
10.
Conte, A., & Horstman, B.M. (2001, April 12). City declares curfew. Cincinnati Post. Available from http://www.cincypost.com
11.
Denzin, N.K. (1997). Interpretive ethnography: Ethnographic practices for the 21st century. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
12.
Denzin, N.K., & Lincoln, Y.S. (2000). Introduction: The discipline and practice of qualitative research. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (pp. 1-28). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
13.
Dixon, T.L., Azocar, C.L., & Casas, M. (2003). The portrayal of race and crime on network news . Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, 47, 498-523.
14.
Dixon, T.L., & Linz, D. (2000a). Overrepresentation and underrepresentation of African Americans and Latinos as lawbreakers on television news. Journal of Communication, 50, 131-154.
15.
Dixon, T.L., & Linz, D. (2000b). Race and misrepresentation of victimization on local television news. Communication Research, 27, 547-573.
16.
Dixon, T.L., & Linz, D. (2002). Television news, prejudicial pretrial publicity and the depiction of race. Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, 46, 112-136.
17.
Ellis, C., & Bochner, A.P. (2000). Autoethnography, personal narrative, reflexivity
18.
Researcher as subject. In N. K. Denzin &Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (pp. 733-768). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
19.
Entman, R. (1992). Blacks in the news. Journalism Quarterly, 69, 341-361.
20.
Entman, R. (1993). Framing: Toward clarification of a fractured paradigm . Journal of Communication, 43, 41-58.
21.
Fairhurst, G.T., & Sarr, R.A. (1996). The art of framing: Managing the language of leadership . San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
22.
Foltz, T.G., & Griffin, W. (1996). "She changes everything she touches": Ethnographic
23.
journeys of self-discovery. In C. Ellis & A. P. Bochner (Eds.), Composing ethnography: Alternative forms of qualitative writing (pp. 301-329). Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira.
24.
Goodall, H.L., Jr. (2000). Writing the new ethnography. Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira.
25.
Hall, S., Critcher, C., Jefferson, T., Clarke, J., & Roberts, B. (1978). Policing the crisis: Mugging, the state, and law and order. London: Macmillan.
26.
Hardin, R., & Zuegner, C. (2003). Life, liberty, and the pursuit of golf balls: Magazine promotion of golf during the 1920s. Journalism History , 29, 82-90.
27.
Horstman, B.M. (2001, April 10). 15 Black men killed since 1995. Cincinnati Post. Available from http://www.cincypost.com
28.
Iyengar, S., & Simon, A. (1993). News coverage of the Gulf Crisis and public opinion: A study of agenda-setting, priming, and framing. Communication Research, 20, 365-383.
29.
Jackson, R.L. (2000). So real illusions of Black intellectualism: Exploring race, roles, and gender in the academy. Communication Theory , 10, 48-63.
30.
Kain, J.F. (1979). Race and poverty: Keys to central city revitalization . In H. J. Bryce (Ed.), Revitalizing cities (pp.105-128). Lexington, MA: D. C. Heath.
31.
Knight, M.G. (1999). Getting past the impasse: Framing as a tool for public relations. Public Relations Review, 25, 381-398.
32.
Kosicki, G. (1993). Problems and opportunities in agenda-setting research: A 20-year assessment. Journal of Communication, 43, 100-128.
33.
Kosnac, E. (2001, August 26). Over-the-Rhine through a lens. Cincinnati Enquirer, p. E1.
34.
Littlejohn, S.W. (1977). Frame analysis and communication. Communication Research, 4, 485-492.
35.
Maher, T.M. (2001). Framing: An emerging paradigm or a phase of agenda setting? In S. D. Reese, O. H. Gandy Jr., & A. E. Grant (Eds.). Framing public life: Perspectives on media and our understanding of the social world (pp. 83-94). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
36.
McCombs, M.E. (1997). New frontiers in agenda setting: Agendas of attributes and frames. Mass Communication Review, 24, 4-24.
37.
Miller, Z.L., & Tucker, B. (1998). Changing plans for America's inner cities: Cincinnati's Over-the Rhine and twentieth-century urbanism. Columbus : The Ohio State University Press.
38.
Ryan, C., Carragee, K.M., & Meinhofer, W. (2001). Theory into practice: Framing, the news media, and collective action. Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, 45, 175-182.
39.
Stabile, C.A. (2001). Conspiracy or consensus? Reconsidering the moral panic. Journal of Communication Inquiry, 25, 258-278.
40.
Taylor, H.L., Jr.( 1993a). City building, public policy, the rise of the industrial city, and Black ghetto-slum formation in Cincinnati, 1850-1940. In H. L. Taylor Jr. (Ed.), Race and the city: Work, community, and protest in Cincinnati, 1820-1970 (pp. 156-191). Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press.
41.
Taylor, Jr., H.L. (1993b). Preface. In H. L. Taylor, Jr. (Ed.), Race and the city: Work, community, and protest in Cincinnati, 1820-1970 (pp. xiii-xxiii). Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press.
42.
Tucker, L.R. (1998). The framing of Calvin Klein: A frame analysis of media discourse about the August 1995 Calvin Klein Jeans advertising campaign . Critical Studies in Mass Communication, 15, 141-157.
43.
Valentino, N.A. (1999). Crime news and the priming of racial attitudes during evaluations of the president. Public Opinion Quarterly , 63, 293-320.
44.
Wcpo. (2002a). Crime on Vine [Electronic version]. WCPO-TV in Cincinnati Local News and Segments. Available from http://www.wcpo.com
45.
Wcpo. (2002b). Mayor reacts to Vine [Electronic version]. WCPO-TV in Cincinnati Local News and Segments. Available from http://www.wcpo.com
46.
Wilson, W.J. (1978). The declining significance of race: Blacks and changing American institutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
47.
Wilson, W.J. (1987). The truly disadvantaged: The inner city, the underclass, and public policy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
48.
Wilson, W.J. (1996). When work disappears: The world of the new urban poor. New York: Knopf.
